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Glitnir had been feeling unsettled lately.

It wasn’t really surprising, given the events of about a week ago. A Squire had been lost to Chaos. He knew that Cor Caroli was not taking it well at all, and neither was he, though for a different reason and in a different way. While his friend was throwing an emotional fit and stuffing his face with ice cream and refusing to leave his room, Glitnir was still roughly functional, if a bit more glum than usual. He didn’t take the loss quite as personally, but any corruption was still a great blow to Order.

While patrolling this night, he felt the prickling of a Chaos aura that slowly tugged him out of his reverie. More specifically, it was slow at first, but the tug became a yank when it occurred to him that there was no mere Lieutenant around. There was a Captain, a real threat. His grip on his scale chain tightened, and he ducked around a corner. The Captain would probably feel him soon, and he wasn’t feeling confident that this one would just keep going on his merry way.

There was probably a fight on the horizon.

Necessity drew him deep into his own thoughts.

Already he proved he could begin performing the necessary functions of a Captain from a soldiering standpoint, but what of governing other officers? Or administering punishments? Or educating those who desperately required new skills? They were concerns he held once, as a lieutenant, but the circumstances of his captaincy cast him so far from that course that he hardly thought of it anymore.

Or perhaps, that wasn’t quite accurate. Umber reflected on it while he allowed muscle memory and instinct to navigate him. He wondered at the efficacies of turning minds more favorably toward Chaos while he descended fire escapes, leapt across parapets, and sprinted down sidewalks. He asked himself if it were possible to correct his brother’s course without death while he passed by a youma that devoured a cabby’s energy. He sought counsel with himself over whether he pursued the proper path as he mounted buildings once more.

And the moment he hesitated to draw heavy breath, he found an auric energy on the horizon that piqued his attention. Somewhere it lingered, just across the deep-hued sunset, and a moment’s concentration left him with a particular direction. He struck out across banks, frozen yogurt shops, and boutique stores until the signature drew perceptibly near, and when he was certain he could discover it with further searching, he dropped to the streets themselves.

A squire. I wonder - are starseeds an effective means to push thought toward favoring the Negaverse? If I fed him starseeds, would my brother prefer our cause? A squire’s would likely be potent - it is a solid starting point on that angle.

Umber strode toward the mouth of an alley and stood, weapons absent. “Show yourself, Squire.” I’m not interested in ambushes.

Well, the Captain was here now. As far as Glitnir was concerned, he had no choice but to come out of his hiding place. “Fine,” he said, and stepped out from around the corner. When he saw who the Captain was, he felt something sink in his chest. This guy was at Ploutonion’s corruption. More than that, he was throttling the guy. He’s dangerous. “You again?” He kept his tone flat as he rested one finger on a scale plate. It was possible that the Captain didn’t want a fight, but if he did, he wouldn’t have long to give him another zap of his magic. Even a little would be something. “I’m here. What do you want?” It was probably the wrong question to ask, but it was worth a shot.

Your starseed.

The question sounded moot, and providing an answer became borderline counterintuitive. To project his intentions to the enemy only invoked disaster - especially with the enemy that knew full well of his participation in Negaverse operations. He offered no response.

Instead Umber started at the man abruptly, the slow simmer of exacting revenge carefully constrained to the back of his mind. His approach came almost clinically. Dropping low, he aimed to strike at the ankles of the squire.

You will not hinder me twice.

With a gasp, Glitnir jumped back to dodge the strike at his ankles. “So much for discussion,” he grumbled before quickly pressing down on one of his scale plates to activate his magic. He wouldn’t be able to get too much out of it, but maybe even a little zap of magic would throw the Captain off long enough for a strike. “I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe I thought you weren’t just a Chaos-pumped fighting machine and maybe you’d be reasonable without your superiors and colleagues breathing down your neck. But I guess you’re always on the job, huh? Go find a corner and think about what you’re doing.” With the help of my magic, however much I get out of it.



Assumptions. All assumptions. Engaging them is the worst choice. They need no fodder for their baseless ire.

Yet his words were a point of contention, he realized, as the man's hands touched the scales. A pervasive guilt slipped into his drive and he faltered on that front, stumbling while he tried to ration with himself that his motives were not that of a mindless Chaos-seeded drone. However, he called into question the efficacy of this course of action in assisting his brother, and even his reasoning behind wanting to save the boy. As a sibling, there was precedent for his brother to hold a higher value, but… When had an organization taken such a hold?

Why was he considering this? His duties were obvious, and his emotional stance toward them held little value.

“Talking down to me with contempt offers no grounds for discussion.” He had slid to a halt. His gaze lingered on the weapon impatiently, as he wondered if the sudden pall cast over his thoughts was magically-born. Engaging him momentarily meant a stall long enough to understand.

Glitnir began to back away a bit, still keeping Umber within the range of his magic. It would give him a quick escape (or at least slightly quicker) if things took a turn for the worse. Maybe. “Well, I left the door open for reason when I asked you what you wanted. Some of your people are actually willing to at least say something when the first thing thrown isn’t a fist.” His mind flashed to the strange lieutenant he had encountered as a Page who didn’t seem particularly interested in doing his job. “Or at least, they act like they don’t really want to do their jobs. I guess that’s more of a Lieutenant thing than a Captain thing, huh?” He was going to run out of magic time eventually; he could only stall and probe for so much longer. “You don’t get a promotion for having doubts.”

”And some of my comrades are worthless,” he returned at a low simmer, his contempt palpable. He drives home all too well the need to finish my research. Do I dally? Is that the reason behind this rotten sensation?

Doubtful. That hand on the scales hasn’t moved.

“What I want are answers.” Dare he go further? Explaining his position outright was grounds for opposition regardless of what he said. “And those answers might be more easily wrested from my enemy’s breast than his mind.” Umber assured himself that, even if he failed to claim this knight’s starseed, there were others - a plethora patrolled the streets at night in search of youma or their imaginary wrongdoings. At a lesser level, starseeds pooled through the streets at all hours in the form of civilians. He needn’t be picky to start that experiment. But was that really a path worth taking? Starseed consumption bore its own consequences…

So what, then? How could he possibly proceed without an inkling of what to examine next? He needed answers, regardless of the source.

Umber shifted to encircle Glitnir slowly until both he and the Squire had their backs to respective walls. There’s no indication that this will go over better with violence. “Which doubts are those, Squire?”

'It sounds like some of your people don't get the opportunity to think about it.'

That statement alone held truth. Perhaps some didn't, and that accounted for their commitment to the Negaverse's deeds. His brother found that time, and what came of that? A marked distaste for the Negaverse and active interest in sabotaging it. Was it, then, safe to assume that most denizens of Destiny City found the Dark Kingdom's goals abhorrent? And what transpired in his own training and formative years to prep him for falling in line with the faction? A surfeit of questions erupted from that single statement, which left Umber in a smoldering frustration.

The jab of 'clearly committed' found little purchase in him, when he already focused on the earlier phrasing. Was there something he could take home from this beyond a suspicion that they needed to perform their enlistments elsewhere?Umber's gaze followed the escaping squire while he thought of it. Perhaps some lingering guilt remained after the squire's magic, or he found himself so perplexed that pursuit seemed no worthwhile expenditure of time, but he made no move to stop the man - not when he sought furiously for an answer within the black-haired man's statement. Something there lingered just beyond his grasp, and he expected to find it before he moved from that spot. So what was it that could come of this statement, this declaration on the Negaverse and its officers?

Ah, yes.

Thought.

As Umber departed from where he stood, he considered learned helplessness scenarios enforced upon Ochre. Would it take where the others hadn't? And were there other paths he could pursue with thought and motivation? Could he lobotomize an officer altogether, keep them human, and ensure he had a deadly officer on his hands?

And somewhere beyond those forethoughts, he wondered if the squire actually expected that his claims of innocence in others and the wrongness of taking energy might actually sway Umber's mind.